


A Hope of Warmth Amid Winter Snows

by DKNC



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DKNC/pseuds/DKNC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His lady wife’s first winter in the North had been a mild one thus far, and when a true northern snowstorm threatens, Ned Stark knows it will come as a shock to Catelyn. As he tries to prepare her for the snow, he also reflects on their marriage thus far—how his claiming a boy named Snow has affected the two of them, and how much he longs for real warmth between them in spite of that.</p><p>This story was written as a part of Ned/Cat Week December 2014 on Tumblr for the prompt "Snow".</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hope of Warmth Amid Winter Snows

Ned Stark looked at the leaden sky. The wind had picked up considerably since morning, and it pushed ever darker and thicker clouds in from the northwest. They hung low and heavy now in the air above Winterfell’s walls as if the wind could bring them here but not blow them away.

“Snow,” Rodrik Cassel muttered from where he stood beside him.

Ned nodded. “A lot of it by the look of that sky,” he replied. “An actual Northern winter storm. We’ll be well buried by the morrow.”

The older man grinned at him, making his white whiskers vibrate with the movement of his lips. “Aye, and we’ll be ready to dig out when it stops.” He clapped Ned on the back in a gesture far more familiar than he would ever use in front of others now that Ned was Lord of Winterfell. “I confess I’m looking forward to it, my lord. We haven’t had a decent snow since the year spring decided not to bloom into summer after all. This winter’s been one of the mildest I remember.”

Ned’s own lips quivered at that, threatening to curl up into a smile. “So you have mentioned to my lady wife more than once. I am not certain she believes you.”

Cassel laughed. “She’ll believe me by morning, my lord. Lady Stark has been an admirable wife to you, I’ll admit. There’s more steel in her than I’d have expected in a highborn southron maid. But she’s no notion of what winter in the North truly means. Not yet.”

Ned frowned slightly. He may not yet know his lady wife as well as he wished, but he did know she did not like being referred to as a ‘southron maid.’ 

_Honestly, Ned!_ she had said in exasperation a few moons back as she paced her bedchamber not long before Sansa’s birth. _Why must they persist in calling me so? It is certainly obvious I am no maid!_ She’d made a sweeping motion of her arms encompassing her large belly, and he’d laughed which had only irritated her further. He’d not been irritated in the slightest, only irrationally pleased that in her agitation she’d used his given name without his having to prompt her. _And I am the Lady of the Winterfell,_ she’d continued. _Wedded to the North. How long will everyone here from your most noble bannermen to your youngest scullery maid continue to view me as entirely southron?_

He’d attempted to soothe her by telling her honestly enough that Winterfell’s people had come to love her. He had carefully avoided answering her specific question as the truth was she would likely always be considered a southron by most people here however many Stark children she bore. She’d quickly adopted the northern manner of dress and hairstyle upon her arrival to Winterfell which had won her a measure of respect almost immediately, but the servants still snickered when they built up fires much higher than they deemed necessary because she was forever cold in nearly every part of the castle other than her own chambers which were damnably hot even with no fire at all. Of course, she frequently had one there anyway.

Her gods set her apart as well, and the small sept he’d had built for her had caused no small amount of muttering among the people who saw it as an affront to the Old Gods of the North. He’d silenced such talk whenever he heard it, but he couldn’t change what lay in people’s minds even when they were wrong. And in this, the Northmen were wrong, for Catelyn had never shown anything but respect for Winterfell’s gods, keeping her own faith confined to her chambers and never even speaking of the Seven outside the privacy of her room. She’d been so lonely. So impossibly proud and lovely and lonely. He’d despaired of ever giving her true comfort himself and so he had built the sept and given her her gods. Every time he recalled the expression on her face when she’d realized what the little building was, he knew that he would build any number of septs across the North if it would cause her face to shine like that again. Anyone else’s opinions on the matter be damned.

“Lord Stark?”

Ser Rodrik’s voice nearly made him jump, and he realized he’d missed a question of some sort from the man as he’d gotten lost in contemplation of his beautiful but too often still distant wife. “What?” he said rather absently.

“I asked what I should tell Vayon about the evening meal. Likely Lady Stark has already given some instruction, but she can’t possibly know what it’s going to be like outside by then. Will you be wanting to dine in the Hall or in chambers?”

Ned snorted briefly. “She’ll not thank me for contradicting her if she’s already ordered our meal served in the Great Hall, but she’ll not want to go out in the weather this evening. She certainly won’t want to take Robb out in it. Have Vayon arrange for something to be brought to her chambers. We’ll dine with Robb there.”

“And Jon?”

Ned scowled. His lady wife’s chambers were the one place in Winterfell he would certainly not bring the boy all knew as his bastard. 

“Old Nan and some of the chamber maids would be happy to eat with him in the nursery, my lord,” Ser Rodrik said quickly. “They dote on the lad.”

“Aye,” Ned said softly. “That they do.” _To Catelyn’s everlasting displeasure,_ he thought bitterly. Jon’s resemblance to him was remarked upon frequently throughout the household, and his lady wife consistently saw it as a reproach to her and an unfavorable mark against Robb as he took after her own family in appearance. It wasn’t true, of course. Robb was revered as the heir to Winterfell and much loved in his own right. Their son was easy to love—more pleasing to look upon than any child Ned had ever seen at least until his daughter had been born, quick to smile and laugh, and already possessed of a determined personality and sense of adventure at the age of three. Winterfell and the North would be his by right and by the devotion of his people. All Ned wanted for Jon was security and a knowledge of his family and home. 

Catelyn couldn’t see her way to accept any place for Jon at Winterfell, however. For three years now, he had prayed that she might open her heart to the boy, but he feared that she never would. She looked at Jon and saw his presence here only as a threat to Robb’s inheritance and an insult to herself. He was, in fact, neither, but Ned could not make her see the truth of the first without telling her the truth of the second, and that was one thing he could never do. So he simply endeavored to love the boy enough to make him know this was his home while never requiring his lady wife to recognize him at all. Beyond insisting that Jon and Robb be allowed to play and eat together, he made no demands of her concerning his acknowledged bastard at all. He feared this balancing act would grow more difficult as Jon himself grew, but he pledged himself to making the best of it, for he had no wish to withhold his affection from Jon or to damage the tenuous, but slowly building warmth that had taken root between Catelyn and himself when his seed had quickened within her womb a second time and brought them Sansa.

“That will be fine, Ser Rodrik,” he said now. “If the storm does become violent enough that he is frightened, have Old Nan send someone for me.”

“Yes, my lord.” 

Ned nodded farewell to his master-at-arms and walked to the steps leading down from the western wall where he’d stood with Cassel to watch the sky. The first flakes began to fall as his feet hit the courtyard, and by the time he approached the entrance to the Great Keep, they were swirling around him thick and fast, confirming that he’d chosen wisely by deciding to keep his family indoors for the rest of the day.

Unsurprisingly, he found her in the nursery. She sat holding a dozing Sansa against her while she watched Robb play. Ned paused in the doorway to simply look at her. She was lovely, his wife, and never more so than when she was with their children. Some of her long auburn hair fell forward over her shoulder brushing against the identically covered wisps on the head of the baby girl that rested on her bosom. Sansa’s hair seemed already to be twice as thick as it had at her birth two moons past and had just begun to curl softly at the ends. Catelyn’s eyes danced with amusement and a small smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she watched Robb whack at a cloth dragon with a small wooden sword.

Ned turned his own eyes toward Robb just as he hit the dragon hard enough to knock it several feet across the nursery floor.

“He’s dead!” the boy cried with great enthusiasm. “I’ve killed Balerion the Black Dread, and you and Sansa are safe, Mama!”

The boy bowed to his mother and then stood up puffing out his little chest proudly. Ned suppressed laughter. Balerion the Black Dread, indeed! The toy dragon in question was blue, red, and yellow—stitched together by Old Nan from spare bits of cloth and stuffed with sawdust for Benjen many years past.

“Oh, thank you, Ser Robb!” Catelyn said with exaggerated admiration. “I was so frightened. It is good to know my son is such a brave knight.”

Robb grinned at her, but then a frown crossed his face. He looked down at his feet and then dropped his sword to walk over and lean on his mother’s lap.

“Mama. Is it true that I can’t really be a knight?”

“What? Why, of course you can be a knight, Robb! Whoever told you otherwise?”

Robb pursed his lips together and looked down again without speaking, and it occurred to Ned precisely who had told him otherwise. Jon was not in the nursery, likely having gone to his room or anyplace else when Catelyn came in. Ned had never seen his wife be cruel to the child, but she certainly was not warm toward him—ignoring him entirely whenever she could and speaking as briefly as possible to him when she could not. Even at three, Jon realized the Lady of Winterfell did not want him around and had learned to avoid her as much as he was able—particularly if Ned was not present.

“But . . . I’m to be the Lord of the North. And Northmen follow the Old Gods.”

Catelyn frowned, and Ned decided it was time to make his presence known. “Northmen do follow the Old Gods, young Robb,” he said, causing both Catelyn and Robb to look up toward the doorway and see him there.

“Father!” Robb cried out, flinging himself at Ned’s legs. Ned deftly snatched him up in his arms and raised him up to hold him at eye level.

“Northmen follow the Old Gods, and knighthood is associated with the Faith of the Seven,” Ned continued, looking at his little son. “But there are some in the North who have been knighted—Ser Rodrik for one. And no one doubts that he is of the north!”

Robb knit his little brows together and twisted his mouth as he thought about that, and the seriousness of expression nearly caused Ned to laugh. He met Catelyn’s eyes over Robb’s shoulder to share the amusement, and was surprised to see that she looked back at him with a slight frown on her own face. 

“But you are not a knight,” Robb said. “You are the Lord of Winterfell. And I will be the Lord of Winterfell when I am a man grown, right?”

Ned nodded. “Indeed you will. One day.”

“So does that mean I can’t be a knight? Jon said . . .”

“It does not mean that,” Ned interrupted quickly. He’d suddenly realized the reason for his wife’s frown and had no wish to add to it by discussion of Jon. “Many lords are knights before they come into their titles. And knighthood would be a fine thing for you to aspire toward, son.”

“It would? Really?” Robb sounded a bit unsure, but hopeful.

“Aye. You pray in the godswood with me. But you also pray in the sept with your lady mother, do you not?”

“Yes,” Robb said, nodding his head. 

“And that is how it should be. For a man should honor the gods of his father and his mother. I have no doubt that you will have all the honor of a true knight when you are grown, Robb, and I would be proud to have sit your vigil before the Warrior in the sept here at Winterfell when knighthood is offered you.”

Robb had little understanding of the religious aspect of knighthood, and Ned’s words were primarily for Catelyn’s benefit, but he kept his eyes on his son’s as he spoke.

“So I can be a knight!” Robb said with satisfaction.

“Of course, you can.”

“I told Jon! I told him.” Robb wiggled in Ned’s arms. “I’m going to tell him that you said so, Father!”

Recalling the snow outside, Ned asked, “Where is Jon?” as he put Robb down.

“He went to his room when Mother and Sansa came in,” the boy replied blithely. Robb remained largely unaffected by Catelyn’s feelings toward Jon. He recognized in a sort of vague way that she was not Jon’s mother and that people did not speak of Jon around her, but as a child secure in the knowledge he was loved by everyone around him, he could not yet see how different Jon’s place truly was.

“Good. I do not want either of you to leave the Great Keep.”

“But . . .”

“No, Robb. A storm is coming. We will not be going to the Great Hall this evening. You will dine with your lady mother and myself in her chambers. Until then, you may go and play with your brother indoors once you have courteously taken leave of your mother.”

“Yes, Father,” Robb said, turning almost immediately to run to Catelyn for a kiss before going.

“We are dining in my room, my lord?” she asked after Robb had gone. Her voice was more formal than her usual when it was just the two of them, but it wasn’t cold.

“It is snowing, my lady,” he said. “I am sorry if you had planned otherwise for our meal, but I would not have you and the children outside this evening.”

She laughed briefly. “Ned, it snows at least four or five times every fortnight here. I may be a southron, but I assure you I have grown well accustomed to snow.”

“Not this snow,” he said simply. “It has been a light winter, Catelyn. I have told you so though I fear you haven’t believed me.”

“I have no reason to disbelieve you, my lord.”

There was a distance between them that had not been there this morning. He had gone to her chambers early to see how she and the babe were faring. He missed sleeping there, in truth, as he’d begun staying in her rooms more than his own in the moons that she carried the babe. Maester Luwin had told him a fortnight ago that she was fully recovered and capable of resuming marital relations, but Ned didn’t wish to push her. He had considered sleeping in her room in order to help with the babe, but feared she would feel pressured to lie with him if he did that. He had no wish to make her feel pressured. This morning, the smile with which she had greeted him had given him great hope that she might welcome him back into her bed, but now he felt unsure.

“I do try to speak truth to you always, my lady.” _Except in one thing._ She continued to gaze at him, and he had the distinct impression she wanted to ask him something, but she remained silent.

“Does something trouble you, Cat?” he asked her softly. He didn’t often use the nickname outside of her chambers, but no one was present except the two of them, and he wanted to reach across the sudden distance that he wasn’t entirely certain he understood. 

She hesitated only a moment. “Would it truly not bother you should Robb be knighted—with the full ceremony—in the Faith of the Seven?”

 _This is her concern?_ “Of course not!” he exclaimed. “I would be proud of him, just as I stated. Why would you think otherwise?”

“You are not a knight yourself. You were practically raised in the Vale, Ned. I’ve no doubt you had the opportunity. Yet you chose not to pursue it for yourself. And it’s obvious that Jon Snow put those concerns into Robb’s head. That boy speaks little except what he hears from you. So do you share your true feelings on knighthood with your bastard and then hide them from your trueborn son in order to appease me? For I would not have you do that.”

The bitterness with which she spoke Jon’s name and the word ‘bastard’ angered him until he looked closely enough at her face to see the pain and fear beneath her words. He swallowed his angry retort as he realized that once again she feared that he saw Jon Snow as more of a Stark than Robb. She would rather have him order her son to deny her gods—gods he knew to be important to her—than to risk him considering her son anything less than a Stark. That she feared he could ever think of Robb that way made him sad rather than angry at her, and he knew he had only himself to blame for it.

“Cat,” he said softly. “Give me the babe.”

Wordlessly, she handed Sansa up to him, and he went to lay her in the little cradle by the nursery hearth. She normally slept in the cradle in Catelyn’s room, of course, but during the day, Catelyn would often lay her here so that she could spend more time with Robb.

“Come, my lady,” he said after he’d lain his daughter down and made certain she remained asleep. “Come look at the snow with me.”

She looked puzzled, but took the hand he offered and walked to the window with him. There was not much to see as the snow swirled so thickly, it appeared more as a solid sheet of whiteness blocking everything from view than a fall of individual flakes. Nothing of the buildings or walls of Winterfell could be seen at all. Catelyn breathed in sharply. “When will it stop?”

“I do not know,” he said softly. “It may end by morning or it may not. Storms like this have been known to last for days, a fortnight or more even.”

Her eyes widened, and he resisted the urge to laugh. She wouldn’t appreciate that. “This one will likely get worse before it gets better,” he said. “The wind is not yet howling so that we cannot hear ourselves speak. It may do that before it blows itself out.”

“Are we safe?”

“Aye. This is your first true winter snowstorm, my lady. But it is not mine. The winters in the North are hard. But the Starks endure. Winterfell endures.”

“Robb loves the snow,” she said, and he didn’t think he imagined the slight note of defensiveness in her voice. He hadn’t answered her question yet.

“Of course, he does. He’s a Stark. Whenever this ends, I shall take him outside, and he will find the snow stands high above his head. He’ll be amazed by it, and we shall both enjoy watching him play. But I shall also teach him how to find his way through it, how to fix the snow feet to his boots so that he might walk over it. I’ll show him how the snow is cleared away from doors and first floor windows and why it must be removed from rooftops lest it become too heavy, and how it must be cleared from the tops of the glass gardens first of all in order that every bit of light that shines in winter can reach the plants within. Robb is the future Lord of Winterfell. He needn’t fear the snow, but he must respect it.”

She’d been staring out into the whiteness as he spoke, but now she turned to face him. They were standing quite close together. “If you tell him so, he will do so,” she said very softly. “It is not only your bastard who hangs upon your every word.”

He wished she would use Jon’s name, but he did not allow her language to distract him from her concerns. “Robb is my son and heir, Cat. He is already a credit to the name Stark, and I know he will become only more so as he grows. He is half a Tully, my lady, and that is all to the good in my eyes. It makes him no less a Stark because he has fire in his hair or will be raised to understand the importance of Family, Duty, and Honor. At age three, he already senses the need to be quiet and still before the heart tree however wildly he may run and shout through the rest of the godswood. That’s the Stark in him, and it’s not lessened in any way by the fact that he also offers prayers to the Father or the Warrior or any of your Seven. Robb is a Stark, my lady, and he will know all he needs to know of winter, but because you are his mother, he will also know as much of warmth as he does of cold. And that will make him more, not less, in all ways that matter.”

She had not looked away from him once as he spoke, and her eyes were now bright with tears, but she smiled up at him. “Starks have their own warmth,” she whispered. Her cheeks colored red, but she did not look down. “I have missed your warmth, my lord.”

Suddenly, he felt quite warm himself. “Cat . . .” He couldn’t say anything else, and he bent to kiss her instead. She threw her arms around him and returned the kiss with a passion he had never felt from her outside her chambers, and he felt quite dizzy by the time they finally separated slightly to breathe.

“Maester Luwin says it is safe for you to bed me, lord,” she whispered, her voice sounding rough. “If you would wish it.”

“Wish it?” Ned said hoarsely, wondering how he would manage to survive the intervening hours between now and the night. “I wish for nothing more ardently, I assure you.”

She smiled at him then, but before he could decide whether kissing her again without being able to bed her immediately would be more pleasure or torture, little Sansa cried out from her cradle. He hoped he didn’t imagine the disappointment on his wife’s face when she told him it was likely time for the babe to eat again.

He left her there to attend to some business in his solar, and by the time he went to her chambers for the evening meal, the wind had begun wailing rather loudly. He’d stopped in to check on Jon first and found him surrounded by Old Nan, four chamber maids, and any number of the maids’ children who were teaching him some game played with rocks on the floor of his room. Ned vaguely recalled playing something similar as a child, and sat down to play with the boy a bit himself which brought a smile to Jon’s normally solemn face. Ned had been told he always looked too solemn, even as a child, and he knew he had not been an unhappy boy. He told himself that Jon’s solemnity was merely his Stark heritage. He sometimes caught him watching Robb with Catelyn and feared he lied to himself, but as he could not change the boy’s situation, he kept telling it to himself anyway.

Jon had stopped smiling when he said he had to go, but he hadn’t looked truly surprised or upset by it, and his smile had returned when he promised that Robb could come stay in his room that night. Ned did want to make Jon happy, but he had a selfish motive as well. The winds would likely remain terrible all night, and if Robb and Jon were together, there was far less chance they would seek the comfort of himself or Catelyn, and Ned had no wish to be called away from his wife’s bed or to share it with Robb this night.

Dinner passed pleasantly enough. To Ned’s relief, Robb didn’t seem frightened of the wind at all, and in fact entertained Catelyn and himself by mimicking it loudly and dramatically throughout the meal. He kept demanding to be held up to the window regardless of the fact that it was quite dark now and absolutely nothing could be seen. When Ned informed him he would be allowed to spend the night with Jon, he jumped into the air and cheered so loudly that even Catelyn smiled at him without pursing her lips as she normally did over their son’s exuberant expressions of his obvious affection for his bastard brother.

There was still quite the little snowstorm party going on in Jon’s room when Ned took Robb there while Catelyn remained in her chambers feeding Sansa. Robb’s blue eyes grew wide with delight at the sight of so many children present, and Ned decided not to enforce bedtime upon his boys. He simply whispered to Old Nan that when either of the boys’ eyes began to droop, she should put an end to the revelry and get them into bed.

When he returned to Catelyn’s room, he found his wife in her own bed. She had the fur pulled up just to the top of her breasts, but it was obvious she wore no nightshift, and Ned felt a heat begin building inside him. Whatever showed on his face made her blush beautifully in the candlelight.

“Sansa?” he asked.

“Asleep,” she whispered. “The wind seems not to bother her at all.” Just then a particularly loud howling wind seemed to cause the walls themselves to rattle, and Catelyn jumped, but the babe in the cradle didn’t even move as Ned looked down at her. “See?” Catelyn said with a smile. “She’s a Stark, my lord.”

“Indeed,” he said with a smile. As much as he wanted her, as desperately as they had clung to each other earlier in the nursery, he now found himself ridiculously shy in her presence. He wanted her, all right. His cock was growing stiffer by the moment at merely the anticipation of touching her, but it had been three moons since he’d bedded her. He feared hurting her or displeasing her in any way. He feared he might be unable to control himself once his skin touched hers.

“Come to bed, my lord.”

He swallowed hard and began to remove his clothes, carefully laying each item on a chair as he removed it. She watched him disrobe and the sight of her eyes moving over him caused him to become even more aroused. By the time he stood naked before her, she could be in no doubt of precisely how much he wanted her. “I would like to look at you, my lady,” he said.

She frowned a little. “I fear I am not much to look at. My belly has new marks upon it and it is still . . .”

He didn’t allow her to finish, reaching down to pull back the fur and expose her naked body to him. There were a few new marks upon the flesh of her belly, bright reddish pink in contrast to those paler lines present since she had come to him at Winterfell with Robb. He bent to kiss them gently, and she jumped slightly. He stood again and allowed his eyes to travel over all of her. “You are beautiful, Cat,” he breathed.

She didn’t say anything then. She simply reached for him and he laid himself atop her, claiming her lips with his own. Her hands moved over his back and hips, and he groaned as she pulled him more tightly against her. He wanted to go slowly. He wanted to be careful of her, but when her hand reached between them to stroke him, he gasped as his hips thrust involuntarily. He put one of his hands to her own sex then, rubbing the little nub in a circular motion with his thumb, at first lightly, but with increasing pressure as her hips began to move beneath his touch.

“Ned,” she breathed. He’d moved his mouth from her lips to her neck, and he raised his head then just enough to look at her face. Her eyes were wide, and her lips were parted slightly. As he looked at her, breathing rapidly and feeling as if his heart might explode, she nodded slightly. 

He shifted his position just slightly so that he could push the tip of his cock inside her. The feel of her around him stole his breath, and he closed his eyes and hesitated there. “Yes,” she whispered, and he felt her hand grip his buttock as if to pull him deeper into herself. He thrust his hips forward, sheathing himself completely, and she gave a sharp cry which he feared might be as much pain as pleasure.

Keeping himself still was almost impossible, but he did it, looking once more at her face. She didn’t speak, but reached one arm around his neck to pull his lips back down to hers while continuing to encourage his hips to thrust into her with her other hand. He began to move inside her and within his first few thrusts, all thoughts of moving slowly were gone. Neither of them seemed to have any restraint for she clawed at his back and met every thrust even as he increased his pace, and when he feared he could hold back no longer, he once again put a hand between them, stroking her as he thrust into her so that she might find her release. When he felt her body shudder and tense beneath him and around him, he let his own release wash over him and cried out as his seed filled her.

He collapsed onto her, rolling quickly to the side in order to spare her his weight, and she rolled as well to stay pressed against him.

“Are you well, my lady?” he asked as soon as he could speak.

She nodded. “I have missed you, Ned. I had . . . grown accustomed to having you here in my bed.” Her voice sounded as breathless as his.

“I had grown accustomed to being here,” he said after a moment, not certain what else to say. _I want you. I care for you. I want to be beside you always and feel your arms around me and see you smile at me. I want . . . so much, Cat. I want more than I’ve a right to ask._

The wind howled once more. Or maybe it had never stopped howling. He realized he wouldn’t have noticed the castle falling down around them a few moments ago, much less the sound of the wind.

“We are fortunate she is such a sound sleeper,” Catelyn said of Sansa, and Ned chuckled, knowing she did not refer only to the sound of the wind.

“Indeed,” he said. “And will you be able to sleep through the storm, my lady?”

“Yes,” she said, curling even more tightly against him. “You are here.”

She didn’t speak again, and he lay awake for some time listening to her breathe and wondering at the meaning of those words. You are here. His presence mattered to her. It would seem she felt safe with him, at least. And she welcomed his touch. He could be grateful for that at least.

He awoke very early. He never slept late in her chambers for however pleasant it felt to have his wife against him, her room was simply too warm to allow him to lie in bed long in the mornings. He walked to the window. It was still dark, but he could tell the wind had died down, and he could make out small flakes of snow as they fell gently against the window. The worst of the storm was over then. He opened one window just a bit, allowing the cold air to hit his too warm flesh.

“I know she’s a Stark, but she’s not even three moons yet. If you allow her to catch a chill, I will never forgive you, my lord.” The soft voice sounded more amused than angry, and he turned to face his wife. She was just barely visible in the glow of the dying embers of the hearth, but he could see she was smiling.

“I’ll close it,” he said. “Give me just a moment to breathe air that doesn’t feel like fire.”

She laughed at him. “I don’t hear the wind,” she said after a moment. “Does that mean the storm is over?”

“I think so,” he said. “Snow is still falling, but not as it was.” He smiled at her. “I cannot wait for it to be light, my lady. I want to show you Winterfell with a true snowfall lying upon it.”

“Mmm,” she said, sitting up in the bed and hugging her knees. “I would like that. But as long as it is still dark, I think you should come back to bed and warm me as you’ve chilled me with your insistence upon open windows.”

Ned felt his breath catch, but then he remembered the babe. “Sansa . . .” he said.

She laughed. “I fed her twice in the night, the last time was no more than an hour ago. We have time before she wakes again.”

His shock must have been plain upon his face even in the dim light because she laughed again. “You slept very soundly, my lord.”

“I have you to thank for that, my lady.”

She put her head down slightly, and Ned cursed the darkness because he was certain she was blushing and he wanted to see it. “I have told you already how you might thank me, my lord,” she whispered.

He closed the window and returned to the bed to thank her thoroughly. The room was becoming lighter by the time they lay still in each other’s arms again. 

“Ned,” she said thoughtfully. He was simultaneously pleased by her use of his name and concerned by the serious note in her voice.

“Yes?”

“I want to ask you something, and I don’t want to make you angry.”

He swallowed. _Please gods, do not let her ask about Jon’s mother. Do not let her ask things I cannot answer._

“I will not be angry,” he told her. “And I will answer you if I can.”

“I believe what you told me about Robb and your feelings about him praying to my gods and becoming a knight if he should wish,” she said carefully. “But you must have said something to Jon Snow about Northmen and knights or he would not have said anything to Robb.” She hesitated. “I’ve not known the boy to lie. He’s too young to make things up.”

It was the closest thing to a positive comment he’d ever heard from her regarding Jon, and he was tempted to agree with her but decided it was likely best not to comment upon it at all.

“He asked me how old he had be to become a knight,” Ned said. “He and Robb are forever asking about people’s ages since they’ve learned to count above the number of their fingers, and the two play at knights all the time. You know that.”

He felt her nod against his chest.

“There are instances of bastards becoming knights,” he said slowly, “but Jon is a bastard of the North.”

She lay very still against him and remained silent, so he continued. “My bannermen are not knights. While a Northman might take the boy and treat him well enough for my sake, he could not make him a knight. And I fear that sending him south would do him no favors. Even if I found a southron lord willing to take him as a squire, he would be scorned by many men he would meet there.” _And I could never send him south for other reasons. He must remain at Winterfell._

“He is a bastard, my lord,” she said softly. “It isn’t wrong that he should understand his place in the world. It is cruel to allow him to believe he may reach for what is beyond him.”

There was a reproach for him in her words, but she spoke them without her usual bitterness, and he had to admit there was truth in her words as well.

“I told him he would never be a knight, my lady,” Ned said, recalling the disappointment in Jon’s grey eyes when he’d said it. A three year old boy doesn’t even know what it means to be a knight, and yet he had already felt it necessary to tell Jon such dreams were not for him. He would never trust Jon’s safety to anyone south of the Neck. Someday, Jon might have his own small keep somewhere in the North, but for now, Ned would trust him to no one but himself. _Promise me, Ned._

“And he assumed you meant it for Robb as well?” Catelyn asked.

“I don’t know that he assumed anything. He’s a small child, Catelyn. He cried and got upset. So, I told him that I wasn’t a knight. That Northmen follow the Old Gods and we have no need of southron titles to give us honor. We have honor enough in our own right.”

She sighed a long breath. “You were trying to comfort him, I know.” She sat up in bed and looked down at him. “He is but three, my lord, and I can forgive your wanting to spare the feelings of a child. Any child. But you must remember he will not always be a child. And he will always be a bastard. I will speak no word against the boy’s presence at Winterfell because you have asked it of me. But however long you hide him away here, you cannot change what he is. You cannot soften every blow for him. It will only confuse the child. And Robb. And now Sansa and any other trueborn children the gods may grant us.”

 _Hide him away here._ Her words came so very close to the truth of everything that for a moment Ned couldn’t breathe. She spoke without overt malice for Jon or himself, but her voice was filled with conviction, and he realized it was concern for their own children that prompted her to speak so. She would go to great lengths to protect them from any perceived threat, including their putative bastard brother. He admired her for it even as it saddened and infuriated him, and he found himself more tempted to tell her all the truth of things than he had been in a long time. 

“I know Jon’s place well enough,” he said, sitting up himself, “and I shall see that he knows it as well. But he is my blood, Catelyn, and I will see him cared for. There is nothing more to say of it.”

His voice sounded harder than he’d meant it to, but she didn’t shrink away. She continued to look directly at him. After a moment, she nodded. “Very well, my lord.”

The distance was back, and he cursed himself for not handling everything better. He cared for her. He suspected he cared for her more than he’d admitted even to himself, whether he was willing to name his feelings or not. He wanted her happy. He wanted her to believe in him. In them. In a future full of promise. But he couldn’t bridge the distance. He wondered bitterly if Brandon would have handled it better. 

“You said you wanted to show me the snow.” 

Lost in dark thoughts, he almost didn’t catch her words. “My lady?”

“The snow. You said you wanted to show me once it got light. I believe it’s light enough.”

He looked at her for a moment, uncertain he had heard her correctly. She looked up at him expectantly. He saw no lingering resentment or anger in her face, and that surprised him.

She must have realized his difficulty because she sighed. “I have said my piece, my lord. You have heard it and answered it.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Now I would like to see this marvelous sight you have promised me.”

He stared in wonder at this woman the gods had seen fit to give him as his wife. Beautiful. Intelligent. Proud. Stubborn. Passionate. He knew she hadn’t liked his answer. Yet, she was willing to put it aside once more. He didn’t know how to reach across the distance, but she would simply refuse to allow the distance to exist. He knew her resentment of Jon would not disappear, but he couldn’t truly blame her for that. He still resented the fact that she had been meant for his brother rather than himself, and he had far less justification for that. 

If she could put these things aside, then he could, too. 

He smiled at her and offered her his hand, praying she would take it and smile back. She did. “Come, my lady,” he said. 

He pulled her from the bed and draped her robe around her lest she freeze. Then he put his hand over her eyes before leading her to the window which made her laugh. When he pulled his hand away and she gazed out at a world gone entirely white, she drew in her breath. Low lying structures were invisible now, and drifts reached up to windows on the second floors of buildings. She’d remarked upon how pretty fresh snow was any number of times, but he knew she’d never seen anything like this.

Her face showed wonderment and her blue eyes sparkled more brightly than the snow in the morning light. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Breathtaking.”

“Beautiful. Breathtaking,” he agreed, but he wasn’t looking at the snow.

She looked at the frozen world silently for a moment before speaking again. “It’s like everything is new. Almost like a blank piece of parchment upon which you can make anything. Everything ugly or bad is covered over and even though you know such things exist, you can’t help believing that everything beautiful is possible.” 

She laughed with delight, turning toward him, “Oh, Ned!” she exclaimed. “Do you understand what I mean at all?” Without seeming to think about it, she grabbed his hands in hers. “I know it will require a terrible amount of work to be done, but I just can’t look at it and see anything other than . . . magic!”

“I understand perfectly, my lady,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her gently. 

He still wasn’t thinking of the snow, and as she opened her lips to return his kiss, he felt himself quiver, not with cold, but with hope for a warmth he’d never known before in the wake of a winter storm.


End file.
